I was struck by the irony of this photograph from the blog coverage of news from the Championship, showing a giant mural of GM Koneru Humpy hovering over the players in the background. Humpy has not played for the women's national title for several years. I understand her reasoning for not playing, but at the same time, I think it's very sad for India.

A tragedy has struck the French championships. I will let Mark Crowther tell it in his own words, from The Week in Chess:

Mark Crowther - Saturday 25th August 2012
The French Chess Championships for men and women took place in Pau 13th to 25th August 2012. Romain Edouard, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Etienne Bacrot and Christian Bauer all had 7/10 going into the final round. However then there was the shock news of the death of Christian Bauer's 4 month old child.

Crowther went on to report:

On the proposal of the players the 11th and final round was cancelled. Edouard, Vachier and Bacrot were to play off for the title on Saturday but on further reflection it was decided that all 4 players should share the title.

Kudos to the players and the organizers for reaching such a humane result. Our condolences go out to GM Bauer.

On the women's side, here are the results for the final round:

Round 10 (August 24, 2012)

Milliet, Sophie

- Skripchenko, Almira

½-½

15

B09

Pirc Defence

Maisuradze, Nino

- Collas, Silvia

½-½

50

A57

Volga Gambit

Safranska, Anda

- Bollengier, Andreea

½-½

20

C25

Vienna Game

And here are the final standings (not unexpected):

ch-FRA w 2012 Pau FRA (FRA), 14-24 viii 2012

cat. III (2325)

1

2

3

4

5

6

1.

Skripchenko, Almira

m

FRA

2442

*

*

1

½

½

1

0

½

½

1

1

1

7

2450

2.

Milliet, Sophie

m

FRA

2411

0

½

*

*

½

0

½

1

½

1

1

½

5½

2343

3.

Collas, Silvia

m

FRA

2261

½

0

½

1

*

*

1

½

0

1

0

½

5

2337

4.

Maisuradze, Nino

wg

FRA

2284

1

½

½

0

0

½

*

*

0

½

1

½

4½

2297

5.

Safranska, Anda

wg

FRA

2298

½

0

½

0

1

0

1

½

*

*

½

½

4½

2294

6.

Bollengier, Andreea

wm

FRA

2253

0

0

0

½

1

½

0

½

½

½

*

*

3½

2229

Congratulations to IM Almira Skrupchenko, who makes a fine living playing high-stakes poker when she's not winning the French national women's chess championship.

Hmmm....and where are the "mountains of Ararat?" Hey, just asking... I find linguistics an absolutely fascinating area of study. Perhaps in my next life, I will become a studier of languages and their origins; probably starve to death, too. Sigh.

Indo-European Languages Originated in Anatolia, Research SuggestsScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2012) — The Indo-European languages belong to one of the widest spread language families of the world. For the last two millenia, many of these languages have been written, and their history is relatively clear. But controversy remains about the time and place of the origins of the family. A large international team, including MPI researcher Michael Dunn, reports the results of an innovative Bayesian phylogeographic analysis of Indo-European linguistic and spatial data.

Their paper appears this week in Science.

Map from article. Red area, and particularly the red area circled in gold,
is the proposed linguistic hot-spot. The accepted hot spot for the origin of
P-IE is circled in black.

The majority view in historical linguistics is that the homeland of Indo-European is located in the Pontic steppes (present day Ukraine) around 6,000 years ago. The evidence for this comes from linguistic paleontology: in particular, certain words to do with the technology of wheeled vehicles are arguably present across all the branches of the Indo-European family; and archaeology tells us that wheeled vehicles arose no earlier than this date. The minority view links the origins of Indo-European with the spread of farming from Anatolia 8,000 to 9,500 years ago.Lexicons combined with dispersal of speakers

The minority view is decisively supported by the present analysis in this week's Science. This analysis combines a model of the evolution of the lexicons of individual languages with an explicit spatial model of the dispersal of the speakers of those languages. Known events in the past (the date of attestation dead languages, as well as events which can be fixed from archaeology or the historical record) are used to calibrate the inferred family tree against time.Importance of phylogenetic trees

The lexical data used in this analysis come from the Indo-European Lexical Cognacy Database (IELex). This database has been developed in MPI's Evolutionary Processes in Language and Culture group, and provides a large, high-quality collection of language data suitable for phylogenetic analysis. Beyond the intrinsic interest of uncovering the history of language families and their speakers, phylogenetic trees are crucially important for understanding evolution and diversity in many human sciences, from syntax and semantics to social structure.

Friday, August 24, 2012

The evidence indicates that we are in the presence of a mystical Hellenistic-Byzantine Jewish tradition, a tradition that Talmudic Judaism either ignored or suppressed,29 a tradition we would not know anything about (for it left no literature) were it not for the discovery of this artwork, these symbols.30 The mosaics are in fact the literature of the movement. We need to learn how to read them.

In the square panel of the Beth Alpha mosaic was a zodiac wheel with all 12 symbols and names of the zodiac, surrounded by four female figures at the corners, identifying the seasons of the year. Credit: Art Resource, NY

You can read the entire article and see the mosaics that are cataloged.

More than most archaeological periods from pre-history, Britain’s Bronze Age is constantly being re-assessed as archaeologists and historians find new evidence of its richness and complexity.

Now the boundaries of what we know about this increasingly sophisticated period are being pushed even further by a small pottery sherd which is currently on display at the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall.

The piece of pottery was found during archaeological excavations of a Late Bronze Age roundhouse on St Agnes, on the Isles of Scilly, in 2009, and some archaeologists believe it clearly shows etched lines that resemble a sailing ship.

For Sean Taylor, an archaeologist with the Cornwall Council Historic Environment Service (CCHES), the find could be hugely significant for our understanding of the Bronze Age.

“The sherd is part of a small thick-walled vessel, perhaps a cup or beaker, and it’s highly unusual in that it has been inscribed, prior to firing, with a freehand design,” he explains.

“If this is a ship, and it does look like a masted ship, then this is the earliest representation of a boat ever found in the UK.”

Taylor believes the inscription could represent a Phoenecian trading vessel, which was blown off course and was seen by our Bronze Age forebears as it passed the Scillies.

“This would have been a remarkable sight worth commemorating, hence it being drawn on a pot," he says.

“However, masted boats are not known in this country until the first century BC. This sherd dates back to 1000-800BC confirming the importance and rarity of this object.”

The sherd, which is on display as part of the museum’s exhibition, 2012BC: Cornwall and the Sea in the Bronze Age, was found by archaeologists from the CCHES on a site owned by the Cornwall Rural Housing Association.

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"Advanced Chess" Leon 2002

About Me

I'm one of the founders of Goddesschess, which went online May 6, 1999. I earned an under-graduate degree in history and economics going to college part-time nights, weekends and summer school while working full-time, and went on to earn a post-graduate degree (J.D.) I love the challenge of research, and spend my spare time reading and writing about my favorite subjects, travelling and working in my gardens. My family and my friends are most important in my life. For the second half of my life, I'm focusing on "doable" things to help local chess initiatives, starting in my own home town. And I'm experiencing a sort of personal "Renaissance" that is leaving me rather breathless...